Viscosimetric squeeze flow of suspensions

The rheology of particle suspensions has been extensively explored in the case of a simple shear flow, but less in other flow configurations which are also important in practice. Here we investigate the behavior of a suspension in a squeeze flow, which we revisit using local pressure measurements to deduce the effective viscosity. The flow is generated by approaching a moving disk to a fixed wall at constant velocity in the low Reynolds number limit. We measure the evolution of the pressure field at the wall and deduce the effective viscosity from the radial pressure drop. After validation of our device using a Newtonian fluid, we measure the effective viscosity of a suspension for different squeezing speeds and volume fractions of particles. We find results in agreement with the Maron–Pierce law, an empirical expression for the viscosity of suspensions that was established for simple shear flows. We prove that this method to determine viscosity remains valid in the limit of large gap width. This makes it possible to study the rheology of suspensions within this limit and therefore suspensions composed of large particles, in contrast to Couette flow cells which require small gaps.